


Maiden Mannelig

by onefortheocean



Category: Original Work
Genre: Changelings, F/F, Folklore, Mystical Creatures, Shieldmaidens, Slow Build, Supernatural - Freeform, Trolls, Viking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onefortheocean/pseuds/onefortheocean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Droplaug Mannelig is a Shieldmaiden. Urd is a changling mountain troll with a serious bout of Stockholm Syndrome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maiden Mannelig

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if anyone will ever read this, but I needed to write it. This is based on a medieval Swedish folksong named Herr Mannelig, telling the story of a female mountain troll who proposes to a knight with gifts and treasures, to be shot down by the knight because, of course, she's a mountain troll. Replace the knight with a Shieldmaiden, because it's necessary. A lot is based on actual folklore but there isn't much info out there about mountain trolls per se so I filled in a lot of the gaps. All of this is mine, though I can't imagine someone would want to read much less steal this, but either way this is my original work. Also: Bortbyting = Swedish for changling. Bergatroll = Swedish for mountain troll. Bergafolk kind of says itself.

Urd was not one to end up in situations like this. She'd been careless, hadn't payed attention. One minute she'd been aiming her arrow at the deer's neck, the next she'd been pinned to the ground, getting mauled by a resident brown bear. Urd had seen it around before, seen it grow from cub to adolescent, and it definitely still wasn't fully grown, but it packed a punch nonetheless. It had taken a large chunk of her leg, stepped on her arm and scratched her up into oblivion. Then, seemingly losing interest, it had stepped over her and sauntered away back into the woods. Urd was going to bleed out in her own forest if she didn't do something. 

With great momentum and a lot of pain, she managed to stand up. Walking, or in earnest, limping, was another creature entirely. 

It took Urd what felt like a day to get to the closest road she remembered that was decently traveled. Interacting with humans is a necessary evil, at least in her current state, and fear flared in her gut at the thought of them. She was losing blood quickly and she felt herself pale and break into cold sweat, feeling as if winter had come earlier than ever this year. 

Urd then faced up to the fact that she might die here. Soon. By the side of the road, far from her cave, far from her mountain. She had only herself to blame. 

Then, hoofs clamped in the distance. Urd peeked from the tree she was leaning against and saw a rider coming towards her on the road. 

"Rider!" she mustered, a weakening cry, but it had the desired effect. As it closed in on her she saw that it wasn't a burly merchant or a handsome warrior, but a Shieldmaiden. The woman pulled on the reins and raised a brow, surveying the creature ahead of her on the road. A ragged young woman, with auburn hair in messes on her head, entwined with braids, rings and beads, swallowed by a simple brown cloak. Aside that, and the piercing brown eyes, she looked like the great Katla had chewed her in her mighty jaw and then spat her out because she was too filthy for eating.  

"Let me ride your horse to my housing and I will reward you with riches and gold beyond your imagine." She puffed, pale faced and bloody. 

Droplaug did not usually meet attractive young women in the forest on her travels. This one was ragged and promised her handsome payment for her services. She was amused, albeit surprised and intrigued. 

"What happened to you?" Droplaug dismounted and left her steed on the road to approach the woman, her modest chainmail rattling against her legs as it swung. 

"I had an unfortunate encounter with a member of the forest." 

Droplaug now had the chance to see the woman's injuries up close. She stepped back to her horse and pulled out a random clothing article from her satchel, stepping forward to wrap it around the gushing wound on the woman's leg. 

The creature shied when she bent at the knee, and snatched it from her hands. "I will do it." It grunted.

The woman was too weak to make a tight knot, but Droplaug let her.

"I cannot imagine you to have any riches of my interest, strange one." Droplaug said, holding an arm out in offer to the other woman.

Urd ignored it completely, feeling dizzy but reluctant to accept the human's niceties. She staggered to the horse and struggled into the saddle. She now noticed that her right arm was completely out of commission, bent at a strange angle, turned blue and purple and aching horribly. As the adrenaline from her trek wore off, the pain became clearer in her body, and every gripe in the world seem to descend on her shoulders. 

"Where shall I take you? the nearest village-"

"You will take me to my housing. Follow this road to the right and turn into the forest by the brook, follow the water and we will get there." Urd sobered, adamant about getting back to her cave. There she had medicines and salves, and no human had ever set foot there. She realized that the fact would change when this woman entered her abode. She wondered if the spirits of her mother and father would turn in their mountain tombs.

The Shieldmaiden followed her direction silently, walking alongside the animal with the reins in her hand. 

"Stop here." Urd said when the cave entrance was in view. She couldn't see the Shieldmaiden's expression, but she guessed it was of surprise and disbelief. 

But the woman said nothing as she led the horse to the rock formation, pausing to watch Urd struggle to clamber down the animal.

Urd fell as her injured leg hit the ground, only to be caught in the arms of her savior, quickly steadying herself and pushing away from the embrace. They didn't make skin contact, that must have spared her the pain, Urd thought. The Shieldmaiden threw her arms up in surrender, stepping back from her personal sphere. 

Urd gratefully stepped into her mountain, dank odor and mossy outcroppings a welcome sight. She staggered to her small makeshift shelving of healing agents, herbs and ancient recipes, buzzing with potency. She grabbed the ones that have been in her mind since the bear was over her, limping over to a part of an outcropping that served as bed, sparsely covered with animals hides and furs. She got to work on the flesh wounds, smearing them with salve and dressing them, made difficult with only her left hand. The gaping wound on her leg would have to be left to it's own devices, after washing, as risk for infection was high. She would hope for the best. 

She saw the Shieldmaiden out of the corner of her eye, silently letting her gaze flit across her home. She suddenly felt self-conscious in a way she'd never felt before, concerned with what the woman was thinking about her mountain. 

"What is a beautiful young woman doing living out here in the mountains, like bergafolk? One your age should crave human companionship." She said at long last, when Urd was finishing the last of the scratches. An ember of ice spread through her chest, her expression turning reserved once again, as being absorbed by her wounds had taken her guard down for the moment. 

"Mountain trolls do not mix with humans." Urd answered mechanically, something her father used to say. She could practically feel his voice rumble above her.

"You are awfully small for a bergatroll." The woman chuckled, absorbed in the figures painted on the cave wall, inheritance from the trolls before her.

"I am a mountain troll in every way that matters," Urd spits. "the Mountain speaks to me, as it did to my mother and father before me. When she speaks I listen."

Urd looks to her injured arm. "Who am I to argue the Mountain?"

The Shieldmaiden looks unfazed by her outburst, eyeing her with interest. "You stay out of obligation, then?" She asks, as if talking about the weather.

"I do not know." Urd replies, grabbing a stick she had fashioned in case of situations like this. She realized that she would need help to splint this arm. She panicked some, because the human would hurt her just by touch, but hopefully it would be worth not having an arm bent like a crooked buck's horn for the rest of her life. 

"Help me splint this arm, and your reward will be twofold." She said, laying out the necessary supplies.  

Droplaug drops next to the bergatroll-woman and bends the offending arm to it's original state, then tying the splint onto the limb. Urd grimaces when the woman touches her, she tells herself it's because of the pain from her injury, but she expects it's because it's a human _._ As she feels the warm, slender fingers press against her bare skin, her eyes widen to the size of serving bowls.Strangely enough, her skin doesn't melt, it doesn't burn like a thousand sizzling embers, she doesn't turn into stone. Stories she'd been told her whole life. If bergafolk are touched by human hands, pain will ensue, as punishment from the Mountain Spirit. A preemptive mean to separate the kinds. 

"Am I correct in assuming that you are a changling, strange one?" The Shieldmaiden asks as she ties the last knot, letting her hand linger on the woman's arm.

"My name is Urd, not 'strange one'." She replies, only a little offended. "And yes. But the Mountain Spirit sees my true form. That is all the difference."

Urd bore little resemblance to the creatures that raised her. It became clear early on that she was bortbyting, not true bergafolk.

Mountain trolls are large, hulking creatures with hair to their knees and large, furry feet, sometimes three meters in stature. Their hunger for gold and shiny things insatiable, they barter with magpies as their equals. They commune with the mountain like religion. Urd, at best as tall as a teenaged child, could not measure up to her captors. A folklore as old as time, the one of the changling. Taken from the cradle and replaced with a child of the forest. The human child is reared by magical creatures that stole her, while their own child is reared by the humans. Droplaug had never met one before to her knowing, but the woman in front of her was blatantly once one of those children.      

"My name is Droplaug." the Shieldmaiden replies, reaching for the salve and digging some up with her fingers. "May I?" she asks, gesturing to the scratches on Urd's face, which she was unable to tend to herself. 

Urd nodded solemnly, entranced by the fact that the woman's touch did her no harm. Did the Mountain not love her as her own child? Urd had spent her life proving herself to her kind, to the Mountain Spirit, that she was true bergafolk. What she lacked in stature, she made up in loyalty and mind. She thought she had succeeded in earning the Mountain's love, but this was a slap to the face. Droplaug's fingers were weathered but gentle, a small comfort amid the turmoil in Urd's soul. It reminded her how her mother had braided her hair in the evenings, incorporating shiny things and nettle in the fall. How she had painted her face for rituals and rites of passage throughout the years. 

When Droplaug's fingers drew away, Urd started making her way to her treasure. "Thank you then, Droplaug. Stand outside my mountain for a moment and I will bring your payment."

Droplaug said nothing but made her way to her horse. Urd took her walking stick and staggered through the elaborate tunnels and rock-ways, to her treasure. She was saddened to part with such shine and splendor, alas this Shieldmaiden has saved her life, and deserved adequate compensation. She filled a sack to the brim, it took her twice the time to make her way back as it did on the way there. 

When she reached the opening of her mountain, the rider and her animal was gone. 


End file.
